10 Best jQuery Plugins for front-end web design

jQuery is a backbone of web development and it plays an important role in both website design and development. jQuery has made web more enjoyable by making websites easier, faster and more interactive. Over the years jQuery has become the most popular JavaScript library on the web for designing and developing user interactions quickly. It is used by every website and applications throughout the world whether its a simple form validation, image gallery, content-revealing animation, lightbox, interactive charts or any animation effects.

The best thing about using jQuery library is that there are already so many plugins developed by different developers that we can use instead of creating one ourselves. so my suggestion to you – “DO NOT create a plugin yourself, the chances are there already is that plugin developed by someone else”, so before thinking about developing, do some research, search around the web, you might find exactly what you were looking for.

As a frontend designer and developer i too spend most of the times looking for jQuery plugins to meet my project’s requirements. I look around the web for the best jQuery plugins i can find to use in my project, and most of the plugins i find are awesome but some are disappointing as well. while searching for the best plugins for my website, i have come across lots of awesome ones which i have also collected over time and these are the ones that i mostly use. I will be sharing all these plugins throughout my blog but in different posts like this one. I’ll post them in each different post listing only 10 on each page so it’d be easier for you to browse through.

1. FlowType.js – Responsive typography

Responsive web typography at its finest.

While searching for a jQuery plugin to create “responsive text that re-sizes based on element width” for my project, i came across this plugin. This plugin helps solve the problem with responsive texts, making it flexible by changing the font size as well as line height based on a specific element’s width.View Demo and Download

2. ScrollToFixed – Best jQuery plugin for sticky elements

jQuery Plugin to Fix Elements on Page.

This is the best jQuery plugin i have found so far to fix elements on page whether its to left, right, top or bottom. You can make sticky footer, sticky sidebar, fixed header, 2 div elements that scroll up and stop at different intervals, endlessly scrolling date markers and even yahoo’s new sidebar. It has many options available and extendable as well, so i recommend you to use it too.View Demo and Download

4. jQuery slimScroll – Custom scrollbar with jQuery

Transforms any div into a scrollable area with a nice custom scrollbar.

With slimScroll you can create scrollable div with nice and customizable scrollbar similar to Facebook and Google. It also has lots of options you can configure and is highly customizable as well. I recommend you to use this plugin as it is really very simple and clean to work with.View Demo and Download

5. Lightbox2 – simple jQuery lightbox

Lightbox is small javascript library used to overlay images on top of the current page. It’s a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers.

6. bxSlider – Responsive jQuery Slider

The Responsive jQuery Content Slider.

bxSlider is one of my favorite jQuery responsive content slider plugin. Its easy to configure and to use on websites. You can use it for showing off your image slideshow with captions, carousels, vertical slideshow and even Responsive videos. Its easy, simple and powerful content slider to use in your project with lots of features.View Demo and Download

9. Smooth Scroll Plugin – Smooth sampe-page Link scrolling

Automatically make same-page links scroll smoothly.

This is a really simple and easy to use jQuery plugin for scrolling same page links. You may have seen this scrolling mostly in navigation menus of landing pages these days. One of the example i can give you is this wordpress theme called Inverness, it doesn’t use the same plugin BUT this plugin does exactly that.

10. Tooltipster – Powerful jQuery plugin for tooltips

A powerful, flexible jQuery plugin enabling you to easily create semantic, modern tooltips enhanced with the power of CSS.

Tooltipster is a powerful jQuery plugin for displaying tooltips that works both on your desktop and mobile devices. It is simple to use and easy to configure, as well as customizable too. While it is easy to use it also has advance features as well. With this plugin you can also generate your tooltip content using Ajax.View Demo and Download